After delaying and dithering for awhile, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals finally came clean in March about its $1,500 donation to the Earth Liberation Front. The donation went to a legal defense fund for Craig Rosebraugh.
PETA lawyer Jeffrey Kerr sent a letter to Rep. Scott McInnis who has been investigating ecoterrorism saying, among others things,
PETA does not provide financial or any other assistance to any person or group for the purpose of so-called terrorist activities. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong, defamatory, and the product of lobbyists, public relations consultants and other paid spokespeople for animal-exploitive industries.
Actually, Kerr’s statement is a lie. PETA provides philosophical justification and moral support for terrorism. If Kerr disagrees, please ask him to explain exactly what Bruce Friedrich meant when he said that he does not blow things up but that, “I do advocate it, and I think it’s a great way to bring about animal liberation.”
Kerr says that McInnis is part of a “new McCarthyism” for pointing this out, but McInnis doesn’t go around saying how he wished PETA’s headquarters would burn down or how he wishes people would break in and steal PETA’s property, as Newkirk has repeatedly said about animal facilities.
Kerr can try to spin this any way he wants, but as McInnis spokesman Josh Penry put it,
The remarkable thing is these people seem surprised that they’re getting called on the carpet for giving money to an eco-terrorist group. Here’s a hint: Stop underwriting domestic terrorist groups and people will leave you alone.
I have a better idea. If Kerr and PETA think they do nothing wrong when they give money to defend environmental and animal rights terrorists, why don’t they simply start doing so openly? Why not start including that fact in PETA’s fundraising literature? I’m sure the people who send donations to PETA would love to know that they are using those donations to help pay the legal fees of people associated with the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. What’s PETA so afraid of that they have to hide this from potential donors?
Hopefully this latest incident will finally push the Internal Revenue Service to reevaluate PETA’s nonprofit status. Surely if the guidelines for 501(c)(3) nonprofits mean anything they mean that openly advocating violence and contributing to groups that advocate violence need not be subsidized by the American taxpayer.
Source:
Group accuses Congressman with a ‘New McCarthyism’. Robert Gehrke, Associated Press, March 16, 2002.
No tax-exempt terrorism. Editorial, Rocky Mountain News, March 14, 2002.